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Tuesday, September 2, 2003
Border murders bring suspects’
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CHIHUAHUA, Mexico
— A nightmare of killings
has haunted northern Mexico’s
young women for a decade, and
amilies of victims and suspects
like are so frustrated over what
[they see as inept investigations
|that they’ve joined in an unusu-
alliance to criticize police.
And now, people fear the
murders that started in 1993 in
the border city of Juarez, across
from El Paso, have spread here
to the state capital. Sixteen
[young women have disappeared
in Chihuahua since 2(XX), seven
of them turning up dead in cir
cumstances eerily similar to the
killings in Juarez 2(X) miles to
the north.
"This was just something that
happened in Juarez, something we
heard about on the radio, until
girls started disappearing here,”
[said Norma Ledesma.
Ledesma's daughter Paloma.
116. disappeared in March 2002,
■and her body was later found on
■the side of a highway.
Then, early this year, five
■young Chihuahua women van-
■ished within weeks of one anoth
er. Children found the decom
posed body of one in a vacant lot
in May, and another’s remains
were found near a road in July.
The seven who have been
[found dead were slim, pretty,
^^[dark-haired and between the
ner Web site that a g es 0 f 14 an( ] 20 — the same
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[more than 90 victims in Juarez.
[The bodies were also found in
[the desert or vacant lots, and
some had been strangled in
attacks so fierce their neck ver
tebrae were crushed — also like
the victims in Juarez.
Mothers of victims in both
■cities accuse police of not doing
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this to spread to other cities and
states?” said Hilda Medrano,
whose daughter Diana, 18, disap
peared May 27.
The young woman vanished
after boarding a bus heading
home from school. Many of the
Juarez victims also were last seen
on public buses.
u
There has been a
lack of communica
tion and a loss of
credibility in law
enforcement
— Dr. Alfredo Rodriguez
Forensic adviser
State officials say such mur
ders occur everywhere in the
world, but they also acknowledge
the killings may be part of a trend.
"This is a complex problem
with deep social roots, closely
linked to crime, drugs, economic
problems, the breakdown of the
family and society, frustration,
resentment and the loss of val
ues,” the state government said in
a news release.
Suspects have been charged
in many of the cases, but in both
Juarez and Chihuahua there are
allegations that police have
engaged in evidence tampering,
torture, forced confessions and
sloppy forensic work. That has
led almost everyone — includ
ing relatives of victims and sus
pects — to question whether
police have caught the real cul
prits. Some people even think
police may be covering up for
the killers.
At a recent private meeting in
Juarez with representatives of
the London-based human rights
group Amnesty International,
family members who lost a
daughter or sister sat in the same
room with relatives of those
jailed in the killings. Both
groups criticized police.
‘‘In my experience, I have
never seen the families of both
victims and of the accused
come together around the
same table to express their
concern about the criminal
justice system,” said Irene
Khan, secretary- general of
Amnesty International. “That
just shows how bad the whole
situation is.”
Ledesma disdains police alle
gations that her daughter Paloma
was murdered by a former
boyfriend. She held a similar
meeting at her home in Chihuahua
to condemn police and demand
better investigations.
Ledesma said the family had
caught a police commander try
ing to plant the ex-boyfriend’s
photograph at the crime scene.
“Thanks to the impunity and
corruption of the police, none of
the culprits are in jail,” she said.
“The people they have in jail are
innocent.”
Also at the meeting was Carol
Kiecker. mother of murder sus
pect Cynthia Kiecker, a native of
Bloomington, Minn. Police allege
Cynthia killed 16-year-old
Viviana Rayas, whose body was
found May 28. Almost nobody
here believes it, and both Carol
Kiecker and Viviana’s father have
condemned the police’s handling
of the case.
Chihuahua state officials say
they have done their best to
solve the crimes but may not
have done enough reach out to
families.
“There has been a lack of
communication and a loss of
credibility in law enforcement,”
said Dr. Alfredo Rodriguez
Garcia, a forensic adviser to
prosecutors. “This isn’t a prob
lem that exists only in
Chihuahua but in the entire
country and Latin America.”
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